Savage Messiah

CHAPTER XV

With his short neck craned over the side of the litter and the wind tearing at his hair and clothes, Geldon searched for the Orb of the Vigors. When the destroyed village of Brook Hollow came into sight, he ordered the litter down so that they might search for survivors. When his litter finally came to rest in a nearby field, the hunchbacked dwarf felt his stomach turn over as he surveyed the destruction. The accompanying Minion phalanx landed warily all around him, dreggans drawn.

Most of the village had disappeared, reduced to little more than piles of rubble. Strangely, random areas of the town stood unharmed, as though nothing untoward had happened at all. Smoke and ash swirled in the wind, occasionally blotting out the sun, and the stench of dead and burned bodies lingered with the heat.

Geldon turned sadly toward Ox. The Minion warrior was as overcome as he was.

"Ox never hear of so much bad happen so fast," he said. "Even Minion war party not able make such death in so short time."

Geldon pointed to the haphazard rows of surviving homes. "I want a group of warriors to search those dwellings for survivors. If you find any, bring them straight to me."

Nodding, Ox went to pass on the order, and several warriors immediately took flight.

Geldon removed a handkerchief from his trousers and held it over his nose and mouth as he walked deeper into town. Ox and the remaining Minions followed silently along, the still-warm cinders crunching beneath their boots.

A baby's burnt crib lay here, a father's boot there. Parts of chimneys still stood valiantly, like charred, broken fingers pointing accusingly at the sky. Those corpses that hadn't been completely consumed by the orb's energy lay all about, contorted in death, the remnants of their clothing flapping in the breeze. The charred skeletons of entire families could be seen holding on to one another.

Flies had been feasting here for some time. In the sky, vultures careened and turned.

His first instinct was to burn all of the dead upon funeral pyres. There were enough warriors to do the job, and he felt the victims deserved at least that much. But he couldn't spare the time. Tristan would be aching for a report, and they had to keep moving if they were to find the rampaging orb. Saying nothing, he lowered his head and walked on.

Then, in an open spot in the rubble, Geldon saw a small, charred body. It had been turned to ash, but the shape remained: long hair splayed out and hands stretched forth in a posture of beseeching, as though begging the orb not to harm him or her.

Kneeling down, Geldon found himself saddened, yet mesmerized. It was like looking into the recent past, and seeing a moment captured forever.

A sudden gust came up and scattered the ashes to the winds. Just like the village of Brook Hollow, the memory of the young child was no more.

Standing slowly, Geldon saw that the Minion search party was returning-without survivors. Landing in the rubble beside him and Ox, the officer in charge snapped his heels together.

"All of the standing houses are empty," the officer said. "Whoever once lived in them, do so no more."

Nodding at the officer, Geldon looked over at Ox.

"What do now?" Ox asked.

"We do what we came for," Geldon answered. "We find the ruptured orb, and we send a report back to the Jin'Sai. May the Afterlife grant that we find no more disasters such as this."

Turning, Geldon left the death site of the anonymous child and led the Minions back to his litter. two hours later, they still hadn't located the orb. They knew that finding it would only be a matter of time, for the destruction it left in its wake was impossible to miss. After Brook Hollow, the charred, smoking chasm in the ground was the most telling sign of its passing.

They soon came upon the place where the orb's zigzagging path entered the waters of the Sippora.

The dripping energy had apparently entered the river directly east of where Fledgling House sat quietly nestled at the base of the Tolenka Mountains. Fed by melting snows and glacial runoff, the river was notoriously cold. But as they all looked on in awe, it was clear that the mighty Sippora had been assaulted by a power that even Wigg and Faegan could not have mustered. The Sippora was boiling over its banks.

Multiple geysers of steaming water flew hundreds of feet into the air-so high that the flying Minions had to convey the litter farther up. As the hissing, superheated water landed again, it scorched white all of the vegetation it touched. The heavy steam rising from the river made it difficult to see, and even at this altitude it burned their skin.

The litter rocked back and forth wildly, threatening to buckle in the heat. Geldon had no choice but to order his bearers higher yet. Urgently wiping the moisture from his eyes, Geldon looked down.

Thrown free by the surging geysers, dead, stinking fish lay all along the banks. New plumes of steam and water continued to erupt. It was as if all of the various powers of nature had suddenly joined to go berserk in this one spot. But it wasn't nature that had gone berserk, Geldon realized. It was the very craft itself.

The spectacle was as hypnotizing as it was terrifying. Still, he knew there was nothing that they could do here. They needed to move on. Finally, he shouted orders to Ox, and the litter and its protective phalanx traveled north, between the base of the majestic Tolenkas and the impossible, boiling river. after another hour of flight, Geldon and his warriors caught up to the orb. It had finally ceased following the river and had begun zigzagging its way northwest, the telltale canyon snaking along in its wake like the blood trail of a wounded animal.

As they drew nearer, the heat from the scarred earth below became far more intense and the smoke thickened. Then they began to hear screeching and howling. The noise was deafening.

At last they saw it. Thunderstruck, Geldon watched as the wounded Orb of the Vigors burned its way across a field, and then tore into the pine forest lining the base of the Tolenka Mountains, setting fire to everything in its path and lighting up the dark forest in every direction. Undeterred by the thick trees, it crashed through the woods with offshoots of the palest white radiating from its sides. Around it, the raging forest fire leaped higher and higher. Soon the rising smoke became so thick that they could barely see what was happening. Tears filling his eyes, the dwarf lowered his head.

This was not the same orb Geldon had seen that night on the palace roof, when Wigg and Abbey had defeated Wulfgar. This was a wounded, suffering thing. Careening to and fro without reason, it screamed in pain.

Geldon had no idea whether the orb might actually be a sentient being. But right now he pitied it and wanted to help. He just didn't know how. That was when the other sounds of torment began reaching their ears.

Many of them already ablaze, beasts and birds barreled from the fiery inferno in wild-eyed panic. The hordes of terrified beasts trampled one another as they tried to escape. Geldon had never known that animals could sound so human as they screamed in their suffering.

Now hundreds of birds-many of them ablaze-were flying out of the forest and directly at the litter and the Minion phalanx. They were a living, breathing cloud of darkness and fire.

Part of Geldon's litter burst into flames. Through the fire and smoke, he caught sight of Ox signaling to the others, and the litter lurched sickeningly upward. Holding on as best he could, Geldon felt his stomach rise into his throat.

Birds pummeled him and the struggling warriors, their beaks and claws puncturing skin. Flying with all their might, the Minions climbed faster, until they finally broke out of the swarming, dying birds.

Geldon leaned out to watch the scene below, and suddenly he understood what was about to happen.

All of the land animals so desperately trying to escape the fires were about to charge into the smoking, superheated ditch left by the Orb of the Vigors.

Their vision clouded by the smoke still spewing from the canyon, the unsuspecting creatures ran straight over the edge. Amid bloodcurdling cries and the sound of snapping limbs, they exploded into flames. After what seemed like an eternity their numbers finally thinned and it was over. A sickening stench rose from the mass grave.

Geldon looked over at Ox. Both were bloody and wounded, but alive. Looking around, he could see that they had lost some of their warriors. Those who remained alive were covered with wounds and completely spent. With a nod, he told Ox to order them down.

His damaged litter came to earth a safe distance from the forest, and Geldon set foot upon the ground on shaking legs. Turning, he looked back to find the rampaging orb. Despite all of the smoke, he could still see it: it was plowing through the woods, setting countless more trees ablaze.

As the exhausted Minions half-landed, half-fell to the ground around him, he walked as close to the smoldering canyon as he dared. He could smell the carnage.

Everything he had seen that day suddenly became too much to bear, and the waves of nausea came. This time he had no choice but to go to his knees and simply let the sickness come.